Dreamlord
by SometimesLifeHappens
Summary: A young man is visited by a dreamlord. But which is the dream?


**Dreamlord**

Daleks. Cybermen. Shards of glass from a broken window, flying past in a blur, falling into the void that separates this world from another.  
The Doctor's lips move, "Don't let go!" gets lost in the confusion.  
Suddenly, everything slows. The lever moves.  
_She_ moves over to fix it, insisting _she_'s got it. _Her_ hands grip the slippery metal with all their might but it's not enough. _She _lets go, headed straight for the void.  
A savior comes, takes her back to his world.  
The void closes.  
Silence, and a white wall.  
The Doctor is alone.

It's been months, but in his 900 years it feels like a thousand.  
A sun burns, tears fall.  
_She_ came all this way.  
"I love you."  
And the timelord ran out of time.

A doctor in training, a strange patient with abdominal pains.  
The hospital is lifted, kidnapped with all the people in it. Taken captive by the police of the universe, searching for a non-human entity.  
An MRI machine, programmed for evil, charged to kill, stopped by a Doctor without a medical degree, one of good mistaken for one of evil.  
A hospital returned, a young trainee looking for a life away from a hectic family.

She'd love to join the Doctor.  
Alas, we all move on. A year's journey in a year that never existed, the wrath of a Master with no following, lost in space and time, but not completely forgotten.  
A hectic family to take care of.  
"They need me"  
And the traveler is without a companion.

An office building, a mystery. Two detectives, one looking for the other but the other unknowing. The Doctor and the temp. The best temp you ever saw. The temp who turned left.  
The man from Christmas, the man with the telescope. The man who never saw the stars.  
All torn by the prophecy of the Ood.

Bad Wolf, the breadcrumbs through the universe, they came with the return of someone old but the loss of someone new.  
The Doctor-Donna, born from something lost, and lost along the way.  
The moons, the stars, the spaceman, forgotten. Wisdom and change, gone.

He will knock four times. Death foreshadowed not by the enemy, and not by the stars, but by the man who never saw them.  
Why did he have to open that door?  
The time will come for you to take arms, Doctor.  
But there's no time now.  
It's time for the timelord to say goodbye.  
_She's_ gonna have a great year.  
And he doesn't want to go.

* * *

John Smith opens his eyes, a flash of yellow light behind his eyelids. He startles, jolting awake. In the glass door of a bookcase at the end of his bed, he sees the reflection of a man standing at his bedside. A short man, who looks so familiar but yet a stranger. Though, as he turns to greet his visitor, there's no one there.

With a quick shake of his head, he tosses his long legs over the side of the mattress, careful not to catch his robe on the bedpost again. He picks up a cup of coffee, finding out quickly that it's stale, and sets it back down. Something is bothering him, aside from the stale coffee, and he can't put a finger on it.

The strange man is forgotten, passed off as remnants of his dream, but as his eyes scan the room, they linger on a piece of what looks like bronze in the bookcase. Standing, he wills his drowsy limbs to carry him to it, and opens the door to find a small pocket watch, antique-looking and completely unfamiliar. He's tempted to open it, but he doesn't. Instead, he rolls it around in his palm for a moment before setting it back down, interest faded and a new distraction appeared.

His wife, a lovely blonde named Rose, hands him a fresh cup of coffee, guiding him away from the timepiece and into the kitchen.

John never thinks about the man or the watch again. But the dream pushes through his memories every now and then, something uncomfortably familiar about the faceless girl who disappeared behind the wall. He doesn't like to dwell on it, but sometimes he looks at Rose and thinks it just might have been her.

And sometimes he wonders what it would've been like to be the man who saw the stars.


End file.
